Skyrim's Dwemer are known by many names: Dwemer, Dwarves, Deep-Elves, etc. Regardless of how they are referred to, however, the Dwemer are one of the most mysterious races in The Elder Scrolls. However, any Skyrim fan will be very familiar with Dwemer because they still have a very large influence on Elder Scrolls games, despite players never coming across a single one. This has left many Skyrim players with a lot of questions about the Dwemer. Luckily, there are little bits of information about the Dwemer scattered throughout the entire Elder Scrolls series for dedicated players to piece together.
One of the basic facts of the Dwemer is that they are a lost race of Mer. Mer is a collective term that encompasses all of the elven races in the Elder Scrolls series, which gives some hint as to what the Dwemer likely looked like. The Dwemer were also one of the most advanced races to ever exist in all of Tamriel. They had technology that even modern cultures and races have not been able to replicate, and the quality of their armor and weapons was surpassed by very few. However, the entire race mysteriously disappeared in 1E 700, which has led to the race's legacy in The Elder Scrolls being shrouded in mystery.
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The history of the Dwemer has proven difficult for fans and the races of The Elder Scrolls to piece together, but there is a lot that has been found. However, the race's known history has many large holes in it thanks to the Dwemer frequently fighting with other mortal races as well as within itself between rival factions. Despite this, it is widely accepted that the Dwemer were present when the mortal realm of The Elder Scrolls, Mundus, was created. The Dwemer quickly became obsessed with the concept of immortality and began working tirelessly to capture the diving power of the beings that had created them and their realm. The Dwemer first established themselves in the land now known as Morrowind, which is why there is so much information about the Dwemer in Morrowind.
However, Morrowind was also settled by a race known as the Chimers, which the Dwemer constantly fought with over cultural and political issues. The problems were further exacerbated when the Dwemer discovered a powerful artifact known as the Heart of Lorkhan. The Dwemer used the artifact's power to create Numidium, a colossal artificial god. This sparked another war with the Chimers, who took the existence of Numidium as an insult against their religious beliefs. However, during the Battle of Red Mountain, the Dwemer attempted to use Numidium's power to bestow divinity among the Dwemer, which somehow led to the entire race disappearing. This leaves the Dwemer as a massive mystery that The Elder Scrolls has yet to fully explore.
The nature of the Dwemer's disappearance left a lot of evidence of the race behind, including texts by the race as well as fragments of their technology and society. This has given players a good idea of Dwemer culture, including that it did not think very highly of magic. Instead, Dwemer favored technology, which led many of Tamriel's other races to believe Dwemer mocked the divine that had created them. This also led to many races considering the Dwemer to be an evil race, which led to much of the artifacts left behind by the Dwemer being destroyed. However, many Dwemer ruins are still present throughout the lands where they resided, seemingly teasing players with Dwemer history in The Elder Scrolls.
The ruins that can be found throughout the series reveal that the race largely preferred to live beneath the ground in sprawling cities constructed primarily of stone. The ruins left by the Dwemer also have revealed much about the race's religious and philosophical principles. Dwemer largely disregarded religion, including both the Daedra and the Nine Divines. Instead, Dwemer focused on developing their own technology in an attempt to rival the power of the gods through logic and reasoning. Many historians agree that this ultimately led to the disappearance of the Dwemer, leaving only artifacts of the race behind for Elder Scrolls players to find.
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Despite Dwemer having disappeared long before players set foot in Skyrim, the race still has a massive impact on the game. The most obvious of these impacts is the Dwemer ruins that players frequently visit throughout their playthrough. Dwemer ruins are dungeons full of technology, valuable artifacts, and operational automatons that still try to defend the treasures of their creators. However, when underground players can also come across another race known as the Falmer that is also a consequence of the Dwemer. Originally known as snow elves, the Dwemer were forced to take refuge with the Dwemer when the Nords invaded the land of Skyrim many years ago. The only catch was that the Dwemer forced them to eat poisonous mushrooms that caused blindness and led to the feral Falmer that Skyrim players now know.
Players also can get a lot of equipment from the Dwemer in Skyrim, especially by exploring the race's abandoned ruins. Dwemer gear is a heavy armor material that falls in the middle of Skyrim's material hierarchy. Any players favoring heavy armor will come across Dwemer gear at some point in their playthrough, while Dwemer weapons are also very effective even for players who prefer light armor. Skyrim players will also embark on a number of quests that are related to investigating the disappearance of the Dwemer and trying to learn anything about them that the player can. Throughout Skyrim, players learn a lot about the Dwemer, which has led to many questions and theories about what happened to the race. One particularly interesting interaction with the character Falion in Morthal sees them telling the player that they have traveled all across the plane of Oblivion where they met a variety of races, including the Dwemer. This obviously brings the fate of the race into question, a question that will hopefully be answered for Elder Scrolls fans sometime soon.
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